Clara Oswald - Definitely Not Fish-Like
by Anya2
Summary: The Doctor has learnt many things about Clara today - in this time she's considered a rare artifact, she's not at all like a fish, she has a reasonable lung capacity. Oh, and she doesn't kiss like the other Clara at all.


The Doctor's feet turned out to be the most perceptive of his appendages which, in all honesty, wasn't entirely what he'd expected. Had he been asked - and he never had, much to his annoyance - he would've gone for his elbows. He was convinced they were prone to a funny tingling whenever something was amiss. He'd even tried using the phrase 'I can feel it in my elbows' several times but it hadn't caught on yet. People just gave him funny looks. Funnier than normal.

There was no denying though that this time his feet cottoned on first, bringing him to an abrupt stop as he reached the middle of the room. The rest of his body - apparently not as astute as his feet - jerked to an awkward halt that left him flailing for his balance. Never one to ignore the instincts of an errant body part no matter how surprising, he stilled, taking momentary stock of the situation before turning rapidly from one side to the other. No, there was nothing here and that left him with little choice.

"Clara! CLARA!"

Not exactly dignified, no, but undeniably effective as he was answered by a dull, ringing bang from beneath his feet. Ah yes, feet. Good old feet. They knew what was up. Or, technically, down.

He hadn't noticed until now but the floor was made of glass, several large, thick panes held together in a riveted metal frame. The design looked like it'd been borrowed from Captain Nemo. Below the slightly curved surface was a chamber, stretching the entire length of the room. It probably would've made a rather lovely aquarium but instead the current occupant was a very relieved looking, and not at all fish-like, Clara Oswald.

The Doctor shared her relief, not realising the tension that'd built from her being missing until he felt it dissipate. He dropped to his knees, peering down at her to check that she truly seemed okay. She was cross and perhaps there was some bruising to her dignity if the expression on her face was anything to go by, but otherwise unhurt.

"Well, what are you doing down there?" he demanded jokingly as he ran his fingers along the glass surface, instantly learning more about its construction than most would've if they'd studied it for hours.

When she didn't answer - he'd at least expected some kind of flippant comment - he looked back at her only to see her mouthing at him, lips moving too rapidly for him to follow. He hesitated, frowned and then realised.

"I can't hear you!" He wasn't sure why he shouted that; the glass was obviously soundproof.

The way Clara rolled her eyes said that she'd figured that out for herself, thanks very much.

"Don't worry!" he insisted, speaking slowly and carefully this time so she could lip read. "I'll have you out of there in a jiffy!" (What was a 'jiffy' anyway? Had anyone ever specified it as an amount of time? When did half a jiffy turn into a full jiffy? Was there such thing as three quarters of a jiffy? Maybe they should go and find out after this…)

Clara planted her hands impatiently on her hips - as though she could actually see his mind momentarily wandering - and nodded. He couldn't really blame her mood; if he'd been held by some mad collector intent on keeping him as a 'rare artifact', he'd want out of his display case pretty damn quickly too.

"I'm afraid Jacob got away," the Doctor continued as he reached into his pocket for his screwdriver. It always felt better to talk - he hated silence - and he began to scan the area. There must be an opening hatch somewhere. "My new friends have gone after him though so hopefully he won't get too far."

Clara hadn't been Jacob's sole exhibit, only his newest and proudest, and when the Doctor had freed the others - some almost forgotten and half ruined with neglect - they'd not been best pleased. He'd pointed out the direction that Jacob had fled in, suggested that perhaps they start a collection of collectors and had left them to it. Justice always felt the most right when it was poetic.

Clara didn't look impressed at this news, quite probably missing the opportunity to give him a very large piece of her mind.

"If it makes you feel any better," the Doctor said almost absently as he continued to scan the rest of the room when he found there was no opening in the glass itself, "he said you were the only alpha human he's ever seen."

Ah, there was an entrance down at her level instead, sealed and concealed in one of the walls, hiding a tunnel that led back into the storage area if his geography of the complex served him correctly. She'd have to crawl out and find him but…

"Too much interspecies breeding by this century, you see." He fiddled with the screwdriver settings. "There are very few original humans left and most of those don't venture far away from the home planet. They're a bit…insular."

By which he was referring to that ridiculous 'Earth for the Earhtlings' movement which thankfully died as quickly as it arose.

The screwdriver let out an electrical wail of protest and he scowled, rattling it. It was only a little deadlock, he'd dealt with worse.

"So technically, in this era, you're an antique."

Clara banged hard on the glass and the Doctor grinned to himself, having expected her protest. Was he teasing her for once? Maybe a little…

"A very well preserved one, obviously," he amended as he tried to whack the screwdriver into behaving. That usually worked.

Clara banged harder.

"That was a compliment!" he insisted.

She banged again and this time something about the rhythm of her knocking caught his attention. There was a urgency there, not protest at his joking with her. He looked down once more to see Clara looking at him, eyes suddenly wide and anxious, her hands rapidly pointing to her feet.

She was up to her ankles in water. Vents had opened in the chamber walls, water flooding in with a rush that he could almost feel the power of even through the glass. The chamber was filling up very, very rapidly.

Maybe it was supposed to be an aquarium after all.

"Oh well that's just stupid!" the Doctor exclaimed crossly, mood changing in an instant as he sprung up into immediate action. He was partly angry at Jacob for his cruelty and partly at himself for being so foolish - Jacob was an obsessive who'd already demonstrated that he didn't like people touching his things, of course he'd rather drown his new prized possession than risk others having her. The Doctor should have been more careful. Instead he'd tried to force the hatch and had triggered a failsafe.

He moved quickly to stand right above the still sealed hatch, pressing the screwdriver to floor, directing the energy right into it. This was more like trying to force it with a sledgehammer than delicately picking the lock, but needs must.

Clara joined him more slowly, wading over as the water reached her calves and made it hard for her to move. Not content to just wait, she ran her fingers rapidly over the wall, finding the edge of a control panel cover that'd somehow popped loose with his tinkering. She dug her short fingernails in to prize it up. The display wasn't written in any number system that she'd understand but that didn't stop her and she experimentally pressed a few buttons.

The screwdriver squealed in protest as the parameters it was trying to work with changed.

This time the Doctor was the one banging on the glass to catch her attention.

"Will you stop trying to rescue yourself!" he said in exasperation. "It's very distracting!"

She glared at him, hands planted on hips again, but resisted touching the panel. She trusted him and if he said 'stop' it was for a very good reason.

"I'm going to open this," he explained to her carefully - he was so close now - "there's a tunnel on the other side and you need to get down it quickly, okay?" He knew he was explaining the obvious to her and it was probably insulting but that protective knot in his stomach wouldn't allow him to not say it. "Try to get out, but if you can't I will be there in a minute. I promise, Clara."

She nodded, letting him get away with what was borderline patronising. He was sure he'd pay for it later and at the moment he would happily do so.

He briefly considered trying to slow the water flow but it was a dangerous waste of precious time if he failed.

"Almost there…" He could feel the feedback from the screwdriver, feel the door giving in. Then he'd have her out of there, take her back to the TARDIS to dry off and suggest they go and investigate the origins of a 'jiffy'. Yes, that sounded like a much more pleasant afternoon than either of them drowning.

Clara, ever present in the corner of his vision, suddenly vanished out of sight as though yanked back by an invisible hand.

Startled, the Doctor looked up sharply. She was back in the center of the chamber again, looking highly alarmed and reaching below the water to frantically tug on something. Something that was holding her. He scrambled frantically to his feet and rushed back to her, kneeling on the glass as she continued to try and pull herself free. He didn't even need the screwdriver to realise what had her. An magno-manacle, one of the 45th century's most unpleasant designs. Well, technically it was genius but they were generally used for the most horrible of purposes. Like holding Clara in the center of the room to make very sure she drowned.

The Doctor stood up again, running his fingers back viciously through his hair, making it stick out at a whole new set of angles as he tried to think. He could disarm the manacle and open the door, of course he could. Any genius could. But those manacles could not be released remotely - he'd have to be down there too. He'd have to open the hatch at this end and then try to find exactly where it led to, force the door at the other end, swim in himself and release her. Possible? Yes. But in time? Before Clara ran out of air? The water was already up to her hips. Realising that it wasn't an option - that time for once was really not on his side - made his hearts beat more rapidly, putting their normal syncopated rhythm off kilter. I didn't help.

"No," he scolded himself. "Think!"

He glanced down at the chamber, trying to find inspiration somewhere, trying to let his massive brain whizz through all the possibilities. That was possibly a mistake because Clara was looking back at him with a gaze that was scared but expectant. He wouldn't let her down she'd convinced herself, he never did.

Only he had. Twice.

It was in moments of such stress that the more abstract plans seemed to form and the one that built itself in his mind - like misshapen puzzle pieces slotting remarkably into place - was a rather good one. Ludicrous, but good. Without stopping to think it through any further, trusting his brain to figure it out as he went along, he raced to a panel on the wall that poorly concealed to his sharp eyes. Jacob hated the heat, the Doctor remembered that from when he'd first confronted the man. His office had been freezing - quite the feat when it was 50 degrees outside - and when the Doctor had commented on it, Jacob had proudly boasted of the most efficient climate control available. Why should his private quarters be any different?

Glass was strong but metal was weak. The Doctor could defeat metal with a bit science.

Fortunately, unlike everything else in the room, the panel was easy to hack and re-program. Eyes scanning, he found and traced the path of a pipe down the wall with his index finger until he felt the small ridge of a join. There was a case nearby with a Naxian hunting dagger in. The case shattered easily and the diamond sharp dagger cut though what was probably a priceless tapestry like it was tissue paper, revealing the pipework it'd been hung to conceal. The joint between two sections of piping snapped open at barely a flick of the screwdriver and the Doctor grabbed the tube, ripping it from the wall.

It gave him some grim satisfaction to know how horrified Jacob would've been to see this.

The Doctor yanked hard, the thick tubing tearing through more tapestry as it peeled from the wall. He kept going until he judged he had enough length, pulling it over to the floor and pressing it firmly down onto the metal frame. So far, so good.

The manacle was at least allowing Clara to move up and down a few feet but she was treading water now, barely keeping her head above the surface as her layer of air ran out. And he was about to tell her to abandon it.

"Clara I'm going to get you out," he said as quickly as he dared. "But you mustn't touch the surface, okay? Don't touch it."

She nodded, so very trusting even now. Taking one large last gasp of air, she pushed her hands against the glass and sunk below the water. There was an odd, horrible beauty to the way her hair floated serenely about her, fanning out like the most delicate sea creature. Looking almost ethereal in the room's blue tinged light.

She didn't have much time.

Jamming the end of the pipe hard against the metal with one hand, he pressed a button on the screwdriver with the other, remotely activating the panel. The blast from the pipe was more fierce than he'd expected and he had to quickly grab it with both hands to force it back down onto the frame. It really was a good climate control system and highly, highly effective. Even holding the pipe with his jacket sleeves immediately started to hurt as the temperature plummeted. He was going to have ice burns for certain but he held on regardless, concentrating on the state of the metal and not the pain in his hands. He'd adjusted the settings on the panel very successfully, the air blasting onto the metal now colder than the system should ever have produced. Below the surface, the water that was in contact with the rapidly cooling metal instantly froze, ice droplets forming inside the rivets. The molecules of the water reformed, spreading further apart, expanding and putting the frame under pressure. It was working.

"Yes! Come on!"

A little encouragement was always good in his view and the metal seemed to respond, the frame starting to creak and groan as it was pushed apart from the inside. And the colder the metal got, the more brittle it became.

Which all in all meant that he probably shouldn't have done this to the panel he was standing on.

"Ah…"

He had no time to muse further than that before it gave out beneath his feet, plunging him into the water below.

Shaking off the surprise of the fall, he came up briefly for a large gulp of air before ducking back below the water, screwdriver still firmly in hand. He swam quickly towards where Clara was and she tried to move to meet him - more importantly to the air she now desperately needed - but the manacle allowed her only a couple of cruel feet before it held her firmly in place. She grabbed at the Doctor's arms as he reached her, panic now in her wide eyes, shaking her head to tell him she'd reached her limit. She couldn't hold on, she had to breathe. Bubbles escaped desperately from her nose and mouth whilst her chest muscles hitched to take the breath that would drown her. She couldn't keep fighting them any longer.

Without even thinking, the Doctor grabbed her cheeks firmly and sealed his mouth over hers, breathing air into her lungs. His were far more efficient, took far less oxygen from the air, and so he had more to give to her. He did it a few further times, letting her breath out, before breathing into her mouth again. When the death grip on his arms relaxed, he pulled back. She made a little okay sign and he nodded, taking a brief moment to kiss her forehead in comfort before he dived lower.

He released the manacle as quickly as he could and then gave her a little shove to help her off towards the exit. She hardly needed much encouragement, swimming as soon as she felt herself released, but her body was starved of proper oxygen and it was hard going. As he quickly caught her, the Doctor slid an arm around her waist, pulling her with him. They burst through the water surface together, even the Doctor gasping now, and he helped push her up and out before he climbed clear himself, the pair of them flopping, sodden and exhausted onto the floor.

He ended up on his back whilst Clara sitting sideways, propping herself up on shaking arms as she coughed and spluttered to clear her lungs. He reached up to rub her arm reassuringly.

"Told you I'd get you out," he said with a relieved sigh when she stopped choking.

A ghost of a smile flitted across her face. "Thanks. A bit close though. And you did fall in which gets you no points for style."

"I meant to do that."

She gave him a very disbelieving look and then let out a sigh of relief to mirror his. "Bloody hell…that was a day." Her hands reached up to do something about the wet hair plastered to her face and he saw they were shaking a little. "Lets go somewhere quiet and pretty tomorrow, yeah? How about a picnic? I like picnics."

The Doctor frowned, propping himself up on his elbows. "Are you all right?"

She glanced at her hands, seeing what he had. "Yeah."

"Are you sure?"

"What happened there?"

"What? Oh…" He realised what she was referring to, glancing down at his palms, red raw but not really hurting. They'd be as good as new in a few hours thanks to his exceptional biology. "Bit of ice burn. Nothing serious."

"You should let me look at them properly. I'm pretty good at first aid you know. You have to be when you're looking after kids."

"No, really they're fine."

"Don't you trust me?"

"Of course I do."

"Think I've got an ulterior motive then?"

"No. What possible ulterior motive could-"

"Maybe I'm into 'naughty nurses' games."

"Clara!"

She laughed. "God, you're so easy…"

Apparently teasing him was her favourite way of making herself feel better. He almost didn't want to deny her the pleasure. Almost.

"I am not easy." He protested in a bit of a grump, laying back down again. He didn't consider anything about himself 'easy'.

"And you pout beautifully."

"I do not-" He seemed genuinely affronted.

"Yes, you do. Your bottom lip sticks out and everything. It's adorable."

"I am not adorable."

"Yes, you are."

He didn't get to protest that because she interrupted him yet again.

By kissing him.

Kissing generally took him off guard no matter how many times it happened, and a good nine times out of ten he flailed like a grounded fish and didn't have any clue what to do with his hands. This kiss was different though, a whole different type of kiss, and left even his usual reaction mute. Okay, so Clara had kissed him before but not this Clara and not like this. This time she didn't lunge at him, didn't grin, didn't try to catch him unawares just to see the surprise on his face. Instead, her hand rested on his cheek lightly for a moment and she smiled at him gently before she moved forward in a manner that was swift but gentle, her lips pressing very softly against his. They barely moved at all, the tiniest brush like a whisper. No, it wasn't like kissing the other Clara - who seemed to do it for the thrill - nor was it like kissing River - which always felt like an adventure and one he was never entirely sure he was equipped for. This was…simple. Affectionate. Tender even.

She pulled back and looked at him with an expression that could only be described as adoring.

"What was that for?" he asked quietly, uncomfortable, intrigued and delighted in equal measure.

Clara seemed to think about it a moment and then she smiled. "Ask me tomorrow."

She lay forward, half sprawled over him, her head resting against his shoulder as she took time to regain her breath and normal heart rate. Not looking at him, but being with him all the same. She was shivering still - the cold of the water surely? - and so he decided it would be ungentlemanly to move her. Yes, that was exactly why he wasn't asking her to move. Instead he wrapped an arm around her and rubbed her back. Just to warm her up.

He was fairly certain that somewhere, a long way away, both Vastra and River were smirking in delight.


End file.
